Category Archives: 159 – Florence, OR

159 - Florence, OR

Sand Dunes near Florence Or

While in Florence, OR. We visited the Sand Dune National Recreation Area.  There are sand dunes all over in Florence, you can see them behind the grocery store, alongside residential streets etc.

But there is an area that has been set aside as the Sand Dune National Recreation Area.  This is on a narrow peninsula between the last mile or so of the Suislaw River and the mouth of the river where it enters the ocean. 

The area has some typical sand dunes and there are a lot of ATV and motorcycle riders that come to ride around on the dunes.  There are some areas where vegetation has grown and covered the dunes.

There are also several areas past the ATV areas where you can park and walk up the side of a dune and down the other side to reach the beach.  When we visited we saw lots of people going to beach as it was a Sunday.  Even though it was 63 degrees people had bathing suits on!  Lots had wetsuits too.

Here are some pictures we took of the San Dune National Recreation Area in Florence, OR.

159 - Florence, OR, Uncategorized

What! Three things failed on our rig at the same time?!?

As we hitched up to travel from Klamath CA to Florence OR the last thing I do is a walk around and brake check.  I make sure everything inside and outside is ready to travel, and I stand behind the rig and signal to Jeff that the brake and turn light are working.

Well, that morning the left side light worked but the right side did not.  As we had to hit the road early to get past the section of Hwy 101 that had suffered a rock slide and closed at 8am we just noted that right turns would not signal behind us and we took off.

A few miles into the trip we started getting warning messages that the trailer brake system was not working.  That’s not good! But again, on Hwy 101 there’s not much in the way of repair shops.  We did stop at one town and found a repair shop about to open.  We asked the owner if he could have someone take a quick look, but he declined as he had a lot of work and a quick look could turn into a longer repair.

Jeff did pop off the taillight cover and it looked like the bulb had burned out. It was black. But we didn’t have a spare.

Hm… so we kept going and got to the next RV park without incident.

So we checked in and got to our spot.  But… the leveling system wouldn’t work!  Not with the remote, not from the control panel.  That’s bad!  We can’t unhitch and get level without the leveling system.  We tried the slides… they wouldn’t work either!

So we sat in the truck and went online and found several articles on what could be wrong. The most common solution seemed to be a wiring problem in the harness at the king pin.  So Jeff started working on it and found a loose wire!  Yay! He was able to fix it so we could unhitch and get set up.

Then he went to a nearby auto parts store and got a new light bulb.  He installed it and we did a brake test.  Nope! Still didn’t work. Jeff tested the volts at the light and all the guards in the trailer but nothing looked amiss.

Next we went online and looked up why one brake/ turn light wouldn’t work.  Aha!  A fuse IN THE TRUCK! We have a trailering system and sure enough one of the fuses was blown. So back to the auto parts store for a fuse and finally all our problems are ended.  Whew!

159 - Florence, OR, Uncategorized

Thors Well and Heceta Head Lighthouse

While staying in Florence, OR, we drove up the coast to see two landmarks.

One is “Thors Well”, a rock formation that looks like a well hole right at the waters edge in a very rocky area. As the tide gets higher, water would rush into the well from the hole beneath and erupt into the air like a geyser!  And, when the tide gets even higher and flows over the rock above it drains into the hole like a sinkhole. There’s a walkway leading to the cliff edge with a viewing platform, and stairs going down to the rocky area where lots of people walk around on the rocks and get right up to the well.  We chose to stay on the viewing platform (slippery rocks and I don’t mix well) but got some great photos of the well in action.  Off to the side of Thors Well is another feature called the Spouting Horn.  That’s a small hole in the rock where the surf would shoot up out of the hole like a geyser.  We got some good photos of that too.

The other landmark is the Heceta Head Lighthouse.  It’s built right on the cliffs edge with two very large rock formation in the surf right below it.  There was a parking lot with a trail leading right up to the lighthouse but the lot was full, so we stopped at a couple of overlooks along Hwy 101 and got some photos.  Here they are: